1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a developing method for developing resist, a substrate treating method for treating a substrate surface with a solution, and a substrate treating apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a mounting problem recently in the process of photolithography for use in semiconductor manufacturing process. As the semiconductor devices are miniaturized, there is an increasing demand for ultrafine dimensions in the process of photolithography. Already the design rule of device has been reduced to 0.13 μm, and the pattern dimension precision required to control is as severe as 10 nm. In this background, one of the factors impeding high precision in the pattern forming process is difference in the pattern finishing dimensions depending on the density of the pattern. For example, when line patterns of 130 nm in width are formed on a silicon wafer, the finishing dimension of line pattern of 130 nm differs depending on whether or not another large pattern is present around the line pattern.
This is because the line width of the pattern with same design dimension varies between the dense portion and the sparse portion of the pattern in the pattern forming process, in particular, developing process.
As mentioned herein, the problem is that the pattern finishing dimension differs depending on the pattern density.